ELIZABETH FREEMAN (MUM BETT)
1742 – December 28, 1829
MUM BETT was among the first black African American Woman slave in Massachusetts to file a FREEDOM SUIT and WON in court under the 1780 constitution, with a ruling that slavery was illegal. Her county court case, Brom and Bett v. Ashley decided in August 1781, was cited as a precedent in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court appeal review of Quock Walker’s “freedom suit”. When the state Supreme Court upheld Walker’s freedom under the constitution, the ruling was considered to have informally ended slavery in the state.
Any time, any time while I was a slave, if one minute’s freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it—just to stand one minute on God’s Earth a free woman— I would.
—Elizabeth Freeman
An Icon Elizabeth Freeman.